The present invention relates in general to electrooptic devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to devices for switching and/or selectively filtering light signals.
In recent decades, land line communications including voice and data networks have shifted from electrical transmission mediums such as twisted pairs to optical fiber transmission mediums. As this trend continues there is an interest reducing the reliance on electrical signal processing within networks, with an ultimate goal of employing all-optical networks.
One type of component that is useful in optical networking is an optical cross connect. Optical cross connects are used to selectively connect light signals received at an input to one of a plurality of signal outputs.
Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) type optical interconnects that use moveable mirrors have been used. However the manufacture of such devices is costly and complex. Furthermore MEMS reliability is of concern.
Another type of optical interconnect that is based on an adaptation of ink jet technology has also been proposed. However, such interconnects are also quite complex.
Apart from the field of communication, there are various uses of optical filters, including for example for spectroscopy, optical remote sensing, optical lithography, and photochemistry. One of the more widely used types of precision optical filter employs a multi-layer stack of thin solid dielectric films. The spectral characteristics such as spectral reflectance and spectral transmittance of multi-layer thin film filters are determined by the number of layers thickness of each layer and index of refraction of each layer. The fabrication of such filters ordinarily involves time consuming and costly deposition processes.